Across the nation

Posted: April 19, 2012 - 12:20am

ORLANDO, Fla.

The Florida judge presiding over the Trayvon Martin shooting case removed herself Wednesday after the attorney for defendant George Zimmerman argued she had a possible conflict of interest relating to her husband.

Judge Kenneth M. Lester Jr. will preside over the case, including the Friday bail hearing for the neighborhood watch volunteer, according to a news release from the court.

Florida Circuit Judge Jessica Recksiedler had said she would make a decision by Friday, when the hearing had been set. Her husband works with Orlando attorney Mark NeJame, who was first approached by Zimmerman’s family to represent the neighborhood watch volunteer.

RED BUD, Ill.

Merle Butler routinely laughed off what became the well-worn exchange among locals in Red Bud the instant word swept through the tiny southern Illinois village that a Mega Millions lottery ticket bought there scored a share of a record $656 million jackpot.

“Are you the winner?” someone would ask. “Yeah, sure, I won it,” the retired Butler played along each time.

Little did anyone in the 3,700-resident town know Butler wasn’t kidding.

On Wednesday, 19 days since that drawing, Butler and his wife, Patricia, finally stepped in front of news cameras and reporters to publicly claim their $218.6 million stake of the jackpot — the secret the famously private retirees and grandparents had no trouble keeping for so long.

CINCINNATI

A 10-year-old boy has been charged with inducing panic after telling police he brought a BB gun to school to intimidate students who bullied him because he wears ankle braces and is small for his age, authorities said Wednesday.

The boy, who was charged with the delinquency count Monday after police were called to an elementary school in the suburban Cincinnati village of Elmwood Place, also told police that some boys “stuffed him in a trash can” about a year ago, police Sgt. Kevin Vanover said. Vanover said that incident apparently was not reported to police.

The principal of Elmwood Place Elementary School called police Monday afternoon around the time school was being dismissed to report that at least five children saw the boy with the gun, and some of them thought it was a firearm. One child said the boy had told him that if he told anyone about the gun, he would shoot the child, according to the police report.

SAN DIEGO

A University of California San Diego scientist was able to use his math and physics knowledge to argue his way out of a $400 traffic ticket.

In a paper titled “The Proof of Innocence,” senior research scientist Dmitri Krioukov successfully appealed his failure-to-stop ticket by explaining it may have appeared to an officer that he didn’t stop when he actually did, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“All you need to know is classical mechanics and a little bit of geometry,” Krioukov told the Times.

The calculations were very simple and took five to 10 minutes, and writing the four-page paper took a few hours, Krioukov said.